In a valley built for cars, Bike to Work Day arrives Thursday propelled by some high-powered forces: soaring gas prices, frightening road rage and public transit cuts. And maybe, just maybe, there is also a growing awareness that commuting by bicycle is the right thing to do.

Bay Area bicycling advocates expect 100,000 riders to stop at special rest stops throughout the region – 20,000 of them in Santa Clara County.

“A lot of people who bike to work say they started on a Bike to Work Day,” says Corinne Winter, head of the Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition. “Try it once, you’ll enjoy it. It’s addicting.”

The spectrum of regular bicycle commuters spans from executives on near-weightless, space-age contraptions to restaurant workers on rusted rolling clunkers. In between are students, homeless wanderers, fitness freaks, people who can’t drive for health reasons and many others. Here are a few people who bike to work almost everyday and why.

Executive on wheels

It’s 7:45 a.m. on a recent weekday. Dan Karr rides down to the Starbucks in Saratoga’s old downtown dressed in a bright, yellow/green jacket. He’s on a sleek Novara road bike with skinny tires, carrying a backpack packed with a laptop computer and his work clothes.

“Ready when you are,” says the tall, lean and fit senior vice president at Tzero Technologies, a semi-conductor start-up in Sunnyvale.

We roll into the left-hand turn lane on Saratoga-Sunnyvale Road, wait for the green light and then take off by pedaling aggressively into the flow of steady automobile traffic. We’ll have safe bicycle lanes or wide shoulders for most the fast-paced, 10-mile ride. Like manybike commuters, Karr chooses safety before speed.

He started biking to work about three years ago to train for a long ride with friends when he realized something.

“When you work for a start-up, high-tech company, you work incredibly long hours,” he says as we motor north, passing students and faculty edging slowly, bumper-to-bumper, onto De Anza College. “I figured out the only way I was going to get exercise was by biking to work.”

We arrive at Tzero in about 45 minutes, and Karr hasn’t broken a sweat. Neither have I, a bicycle commuter since my car was totaled two months ago. He’s honest when I ask if his example has inspired others at Tzero to bike to work.

While Karr is considered a long-distance commuter, Ramos belongs to a huge group coveted by the bike advocates. They are the 40percent of Bay Area commuters who live within five miles of their jobs. If they pedaled on Bike to Work Day, the Silicon Valley Bicycling Coalition says, more than 60,000 vehicles would be off the road, reducing tailpipe emissions by more than 150,000 pounds.

But the reluctant Ramos throws out a bunch of reasons not to: crazy motorists, terrible truckers, places to go and things to do after work, and the dreaded helmet hair. Eventually, though, she brings herself around.

“OK, she says, “I will do it for sure on Thursday. That will be my contribution to the environment.”

Financially motivated

Delfino Silva and Rafael Candia toil quietly, almost invisibly, behind the kitchens at popular restaurants, but on two wheels they represent a large and strikingly visible number of bicycle commuters.

We meet outside Sonoma Chicken Coop restaurant in downtown San Jose, where they keep their bikes chained to trees or light poles along Market Street.

“I’ve lost two bikes – stolen from right here,” Silva says. His latest is a silver and blue Mongoose Element, a $120 department store mountain bike, accompanied by a thick, new lock. By now the manufacturer’s logo on Candia’s $20 reclamation project has worn off.

Each of them work at two restaurant jobs in central San Jose and live well within the ideal five-mile radius for bicycle commuting. But they bike more from financial necessity than anything else.

“A car really wouldn’t be convenient for me even if I could afford one,” Silva says. “Besides, there are other priorities.

There’s the rent. Silva pays $240 to share a small apartment with four and sometimes more roommates. Candia pays $220. In a good month for earnings they’ll send half of their paychecks to their wives and children in Mexico.

We jump on our bikes for Silva’s short commute to another downtown restaurant.

“Do you want us to ride on the sidewalk or the street?” Candia asks.

Where do you usually ride?

“On the sidewalk!”

Not only that, they often ride the wrong way on sidewalks, and always without helmets. It’s enough to make a bicycle advocate crash.

“The streets are too dangerous,” Silva says, “but I’ll get off the sidewalks when there are too many people.”

Candia works late on weekend nights.

“I’m afraid of being run over by drunks leaving the night clubs.”

They may be under the radar of traffic cops, but the Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition has got such unorthodox bicycle commuters in its sights. The group plans to teach proper bicycle skills classes at a day labor center in Mountain View and then one in San Jose.

In Silicon Valley, more than 600,000 people drive to work – solo. Less than 2percent of commuters here ride bikes.

After biking to work with a few of them, it’s clear to me that there’s plenty of room for more – but preferably in bike lanes.

Do you have an idea for Eastside/Westside? Contact Joe Rodriguez at jrodriguez@
mercurynews.com or (408) 920-5767.

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